There is something in The Lord of the Rings that expresses the longing for something nostalgic: the bucolic nature of the Shire, the traditional values and heroic virtues of its people, the enchanted world where everything comes alive. But Tolkien knew as much as this would conjure up one’s fascination for “the good old days”, that such longing was not fulfilled by a return to the past but could only be attained in a transcendent future.
Yet, Tolkein does not ignore the immanent past or future. His heroes balance their reverence for tradition that can guide and take responsibility for the future. While he may be seen as more politically conservative (in the sense it is important to know what needs to be conserved within the change), he did not dismiss the notion of progress.
Instead, Tolkein came up with the word eucatastrophe as a joyful happy ending that we are surprised by. But unlike “progressivism”, this is sheer grace than a necessary goal pursued by man. In this, he avoids the Rousseauian optimism (a purely immanent activism) or the Manichean error that evil has the same kind of reality as goodness (a tragic fatalism). His story includes both history and supernaturalism. Sound familiar?
The moral posture of The Lord of the Rings is also often looked at too simply: Good (the Fellowship) verses Evil (Sauron and the gang). “But Tolkein restores the ancient, pre-Cartesian cosmology in which things are not that neat.” In his enchanted world where all things are alive, we also have characters who all struggle with both good and evil. As such, the “source of all external conflict between characters is the internal conflict between good and evil within each character” (see Solzhenitsyn).
“Tolkein is not a psychological absolutist but a moral absolutist: no person is absolutely good or evil; but goodness and evil themselves are absolutely distinct.” And therefore, all our victories against evil in this world are only temporary. What a tough pill to swallow – especially for a lefty!
So while the power of the Ring temps Frodo as well as many others, in the end Tolkein gets us to see that “wanting what you should is better than getting what you want.” The real Power comes not from the Ring, but the Cross — the self-sacrifice through love and the loss of hope that leads to a greater Hope.
So much like The LotR, Tolkein saw a heroic story to life and that such a story “cannot be understood until you have heard the whole of it.”